Is makeup forever? Ask the presiding Pharaoh from the time when Moses Heston was imploring him to let his people go. Uncharacteristically, the guy wasn’t even packing heat, but he carried a righteous staff that imparted magical superpowers from on high.

“You can have my staff when you pry it from my cold, dead fingers!”

“Whatever,” said Pharaoh. “I feel pretty. Oh, so pretty!”

Moses did have to grudgingly admit that Pharaoh sported an amazing face for guyliner. Still, the whole burning bush, various plagues, parting of the Red Sea, and exodus thing put such a strain on their relationship that he could never confess his admiration for the Egyptian’s fearless use of makeup at a time when it was highly unfashionable for a male monarch to be mistaken for… well, a drag queen. Sure, eventually the whole look caught on among royalty up and down the Nile (can you spot much of a difference between King Tut and Queen Nefertiti?), but Pharaoh was a real trailblazer during this tumultuous period.

Moses would go on to inspire his own lookalikes among admirers from ZZ Top to the guy who yells at cars in the liquor store parking lot, but Pharaoh Mascara’s real moniker has been lost to the eternally shifting desert sands.

With Diana’s help, I aim to reacquaint his daring efforts to the mainstream.

In the video above (or below, should you choose to click on that image instead of the other one — you’re not being secretly tested for your preference, I swear), I undergo what could very well be a much-needed makeover or the most humiliating experience of my life — and that’s saying something! The more I think about it, the more I realize that it could be simultaneously both.

Does this make me a makeup geek? Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps. After all, I feel pretty! Oh, so pretty!